


At the World's Mercy

by BiM0315



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author is fucking with the franchises, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Instability, F/F, Human Experimentation, Other, Self-Harm, Self-Insert, Unresolved Emotional Tension, What am I doing with my life?, Why Did I Write This?, will add characters as they come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 10:07:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiM0315/pseuds/BiM0315
Summary: So, basically, this is me projecting my issues into a work. Most of it is probably word vomit and I have only minor regrets of creating it.So basically, I fell into the MCU, somehow ended up with...abilities I didn't have before and I try to figure out how terrible I can treat myself within the MCU without completely wrecking it.Ok, got it? Let's go.





	At the World's Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> I have no Beta reader, so most of this is just checked over by me, and I am very lazy. Sorry for any mistakes.  
This is also posted on FFN so...keep reading?  
I also update incredibly inconsistently. Expect an update every other...year?

A dull sense of awareness washes over me. It’s subtle, like a light shift in the breeze. It almost feels like I never fell asleep to wake up again. I grimace, squeezing my already shut eyes tighter before tasting the heavy copper flavor in my mouth. A smell is heavy in the air. Very sterile and clean, almost like sanitizer or antibacterial soap. I frown in my mild consciousness. It’s disgusting.  
I shift, my muscles sore. Jesus. It’s bad. I know that I ran yesterday and did a few exercises, but it shouldn’t feel this bad.  
I open my eyes and a blinding light is what greets me. I wince, shutting them reflexively before slowly fluttering them open, adjusting well to the brightness.  
I look to the left to where my nightstand should be, but I don’t see my nightstand, nor do I see Kayla’s bunk. I sit up immediately and ignore the pain in my muscles. I’m not in my dorm. I look around and I recognize metal objects that shouldn’t be in my dorm room and the lack of posters Kayla and I put up. My heart halts for a brief moment. This is a hospital room. Well, at least the smell makes sense.   
I look down at myself and notice the light blue garment I’m wearing. Wires are stuck onto my skin on my chest and arms. I furrow my brows as they follow up to the monitors and trays beside me. My eyes fall onto the windows in front of the tray, squinting at the bright sunlight streaming through the glass.  
It’s a busy hospital that I’m in. I could tell. Usually my hearing is total shit but I could hear all the bustling outside my door. I look over, seeing the opaque little window that permits me a small look outside and I see multiple figures breezing by, doing their job and getting to patients as soon as they can. Except for two passing by in a few moments. They’re just talking about their weekend. I look around. I wonder if I can stand and ask them what the hell is going on.  
I sit up with a gasp, finally processing that I’m in a fucking hospital and I’m in a bed with needles stuck in me.  
Well...I’m kinda exaggerating...I just have an IV bag…  
What the hell happened? I look around in confusion, my heart beginning to race and the sound of the monitor struggling to keep up.  
Oh my God.  
Oh my God!  
What happened? Did Renee and I get in some kind of accident? Did I trip and hit my head? Shit, was I in a coma? God, I hope I wasn’t in a coma. Midterms start next week and Kayla and I were gonna have a movie night! I graze my hand over the tattoo on my wrist for comfort, looking at the curves and floral designs of a Celtic motherhood knot.  
A sudden thought hits me. Does mom know? Fuck. Fuck, this is bad.   
She better not panic. She better not have done anything rash. I swear to fucking god if she did something while I was in a coma, thinking that I wouldn’t wake up…  
I know that she wouldn’t be able to handle it if I didn’t. What about Anahi or Yuli?! And Papi?! And Kayla?! What the hell are they thinking? Do they know that I’m okay? They need to know that I’m fine. I mean, I don’t have a breathing tube and I’m pretty sure I’m not on life support, so they should’ve known that it wasn’t that bad. I look around, searching for my phone though I doubt that they would leave it next to me in case the first thing I wanted to do was Snapchat that I woke up or something.  
Out of all the bustling outside, I notice one particular set of steps stops in front of my door and I perk up. Someone’s coming in here.  
The door opens and I recognize the shape and color of a lab coat. I let out a breath as I see them see me and they relax slightly. It’s a dark-skinned man with a bald head and stethoscope around his neck. I furrow my brows when I smell sweat and furrow my brows. He’s really got to be sweaty if I can smell him from here.  
“Oh. Good. You’re awake,” the man says, walking forward toward the monitor and pressing the screen, changing it to another format and then another. I can’t see what’s on the screen enough to tell what he’s doing but I assume he’s checking vitals. “What happened?” I ask, leaning back in the bed and trying to remember what the fuck happened.  
“We were hoping you could answer that question,” the doctor states blandly while taking a step closer to my bedside and checking on the wires connecting me to the computers. “Are you feeling sick or dehydrated in any way? Any dizziness or pain?”  
I nod. “I need water. And I kinda have a headache.”  
The doctor steps farther away from my bed and I watch him move toward a counter with a small paper cup.  
“Do you feel the pain all over or just in a particular area?”  
I close my eyes, focusing on it. “It just feels like a small migraine,” I tell him.  
He nods. “I’ll give you some painkillers in your next fluid bag,” he tells me, pointing to the stand with IVs hung on it, connecting to my elbow.  
I lean forward as I see him move to a water gallon with the cup, placing it in the appropriate place while he fills it with water. The muscles of my back ache dully, especially on the left side, around my shoulder. It doesn’t feel serious enough to bring up.  
The doctor starts to walk back to me and I reach out with my hand, prepared to take the cup when my muscles protest with a strong ache in my left shoulder.  
I grimace, letting out a whine as I drop my hand, sighing in discomfort. “Dammit that hurts.”  
“Well, that is expected after that fall you took,” he comments idly, bringing my hand up with his to place the cup inside my palm. I close my hand around it, the ache not nearly as bad as my bicep but I furrow my brows, looking at my forearm. Something feels weird…  
“Fall?” I ask, finally processing his words and being immensely confused by them.  
He shakes his head. “We’ll talk about that later. Drink your water for now.”  
Looking back at the cup, I notice a small straw grazes the brim of the cup, bobbing side to side as the water inside moves. I look back up at him and he raises his brows expectantly, nearing the cup of water to me. I give him a grateful smile, actually making an effort to because smiles don’t come naturally to me. I take the cup, holding back a wince and raise it to my lips. I could feel the dried skin of my lips as they close around the straw.  
I take a deep gulp and let out a satisfied sigh as the cool water fills my mouth and soaks my dried tongue. I close my mouth and I let the water sit in there for a few moments, savoring the sensation of cool water before swallowing it. It slides down my throat and I could feel it until it gets to my stomach, where it feels like a heavy splash dousing my heated core with cool water.  
“What is your name?” the doctor asks.  
I open my eyes, as I look up at the clean-shaven man. His gaze is on his clipboard and his pen ready for writing. He needs my information. I briefly wonder why my parents haven’t identified me but quickly remember that I’m in LA right now. That’s how it works, right?  
“Roberta Lopez,” I answer hoarsely. I clear my throat, trying to make my voice not sound as gross.  
The doctor jots it down quickly and I nod, sipping more water out of the cup.  
“And...how old are you?” he says as he finished writing my name.   
“Twenty-four.”  
“Any allergies or prior medical conditions I should be aware of?”  
I shake my head. “No.”  
“Do you have any bone implants we should be aware of?”  
I shake my head, frowning. “No.”  
He continues to write down this information onto the paper and looks at me hesitantly before opening his mouth again. “What is the last thing that you remember, Roberta?”  
I furrow my brows and try to focus. Pushing past the dull but deep ache in my head, I try to remember anything past walking to my car after watching a movie. I forgot what movie in particular, all I remember is that it was total shit. I shake my head, not able to recall any event beyond that.  
“I was leaving the movie theater and going to my car. That’s...that’s all I can remember…”  
The doctor hums as he scribbles this down. I look at him and focus on the name tag on his coat. Emerson. He looks back down at me. “And where did this take place?”  
I bite my lip. “Somewhere downtown.”  
Emerson shakes his head and bites his lip before speaking. “I mean what city.”  
I furrow my brows. “LA. Why?”  
Dr. Emerson’s face grows concerned as he jots that down. Even though it’s not obvious, I could tell that something I told him troubles him.  
“Dr. Emerson?” I cautiously ask. He looks up at me, prepared for a question. “Where am I?”  
Dr. Emerson takes a deep breath, looking back down at his clipboard before opening his mouth to respond. “You’re in Metro-General Hospital, New York.”  
I sit there and a pressure builds on my chest. I couldn’t have heard right. That’s nearly impossible. “Um...w-what?” I stutter.  
Dr. Emerson nods. “Yes. Could you describe anything that would place you here at all?”  
I look at him and swallow, trying to keep my panic at bay. “Dr. Emerson, why am I here?”  
I had to have been kidnapped or taken here. Who knows why? Was I kidnapped? Was I abducted? But then how did I end up here?  
“Could you answer my question first?” he presses gently.  
I shake my head sharply, ignoring the now-piercing pain to my temple and I gently lower the cup in my lap, leaving it in a precarious position over the hospital blanket where I don’t think it’ll fall. I wring my hands together, fisting them up tightly before releasing them and wringing them again. “No! I have no clue what could’ve gotten me here. Now, please, answer my question.” I try to keep my voice level, though it’s still shaky and unsteady. I need to calm down. Panicking and getting angry won’t help in this situation.  
Dr. Emerson only stares at me, his eyes confused but full of sympathy. He licks his lips and opens his mouth. “You were seen falling down from the top of a building.”  
The words take a moment to sink in. I’m forced to lean back into the raised back of the hospital bed.  
Okay, what the fuck? How did I get from the parking lot of an LA movie theater to falling off a building in New York. And not only New York, but New York City, where Metro General is located apparently. But wait, I’ve heard the name Metro-General from somewhere before...  
“Listen, Roberta…” Dr. Emerson begins. “You fell from a building. It is expected of you to have had severe brain damage and bones broken beyond repair And that’s if you lived.”  
My breathing gets shaky and I look at him. “What? Am I not going to be able to walk again? Do I have brain damage? What’s wrong?”  
Dr. Emerson shakes his head, his expression at a loss as his hands drop to his side. “Listen. That’s what you should have had. You should’ve been hospitalized for months before you would be released…”  
I look at him, frowning. “What do you mean should? How long have I been here?”  
Dr. Emerson checks his clipboard, looking from it to me. “Three days.”  
I lean back into the cushions of the pillows I’m in before I frown, shaking my head. Calm down. Take a deep breath…  
I take a deep breath, trying to focus on getting answers from this point on. “I...I don’t know what to say about that.” I chew on the inside of my cheek before taking another sip from my water. I wait a second, feeling the cold liquid run down my throat. “Did something break my fall?”  
Dr. Emerson shakes his head. “You fell approximately five hundred feet before you collided with asphalt.”  
I choke on my spit for a second before catching my breath. “¡Que carajo!”  
“Ms. Lopez, try not to panic.” he tells me gently.  
“How the fuck am I even alive?!”  
“Ms. Lopez...have you volunteered for any kind of experimental testing or operations?” he asks, his voice low and cautious.  
I look at him, leaning forward in the bed and twisting my mouth in a confused frown. “No...I...no!”  
“Ms. Lopez. You were being transported here in an ambulance. You were found with muscle and tissue damage as well as multiple broken bones. That is expected of many fallers. But...you healed in virtually two days.”  
I furrow my brows. “What? How is that possible?”  
“It’s not,” Dr. Emerson tells me bluntly. “You shouldn’t even be awake right now.”  
I bite my lip. “Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It’s a miracle.”  
Dr. Emerson nods. “It is. You should count yourself very lucky. You are perfectly healthy, all healed up from tissue damage and your muscles are all repaired. You should probably thank your enhancements for that.”  
I take notice of the off word he says. “Enhancements?”  
Dr. Emerson looks up from his clipboards. “Yes, enhancements. It’s most likely the reason you’re alive. Your regenerative cells are what saved you.”  
“Regenerative cells? What the hell are you talking about?”   
Dr. Emerson seems to swallow and bite his lip before placing his clipboard on the tray beside me. I look at the clipboard on the silver tray and I notice the familiar shape of my glasses. What the hell? I’m not wearing my glasses?   
I reach out and take them, bringing them up to my face as Dr. Emerson continues to speak.  
“Ms. Lopez, are you aware that you are able to regenerate living cells and tissue at an accelerated rate?”  
Staring at this man and his serious expression, I have to believe that I misheard what he just said. “I’m sorry but what?”  
He takes a deep breath, flipping his pen between his fingers as he contemplates what to say. “You were brought in with minor tissue damage, a few broken bones and severe organ and brain damage.” He moves to the front of my bed, pulling out files from what I assume is a file holder attached to the front of the bed and he opens it. He shuffles through the papers and he pulls out three pages.  
He hands me an x-ray of my ribs and he points to three thin lines that crack through the bottom three ribs of my left side.  
“These are some of your cracked ribs. The paramedics said that they predicted clean breaks in almost all of them, in your sternum and your clavicle. They felt your left arms, wrist. They said that your humerus had a clean break,” he says. He puts another page on my lap and I hold it up. This one is of my hip bone and my thigh. I notice a fine line spanning the the top and bottom parts of the ring that my hips create with the pelvis bone. “Along with those, they felt clean breaks in your femur and your spine. But when they brought you in those bones were fine, completely untouched besides the hairline fracture in your pelvis,” he tells me as he gestures to my clavicle, sternum and the page with my hips and leg. “You did suffer internal bleeding,” he gestures to darker splotches within my ribs and abdomen. “But there were little signs beyond lacerations across your body to suggest severe tissue damage.”  
He drops another x-ray, and this one is of my skull. “Your skull also suffered severe fractures,” he continues, clearly not noticing my shallow breathing at the intake of this information. “I expected for you to never wake up. I was expecting to call brain dead after a few weeks but, by the end of the night, the nurse came back in and saw all your cuts began to scab. There was no bruising whatsoever.” He sighs, running a hand over his bald head, massaging it. “It was hard to believe. Eventually, we took another x-ray at eleven. It...this is it,” he hands me another x-ray of my torso. Holding it against the light, I see that the three lines from before are gone. I squint hard, trying to find a sign of cracking but there isn’t. I check the date on the earlier x-ray, both saying that it was taken September thirteen, but the first one saying six thirty-three and the second saying eleven forty-five.“As you can see, all your bones are perfectly fine now.”  
“So…” I breathe, staring at the bright white of my muscle and biting my lip. “You’re telling me that these are my x-rays...and my bones are all better, my internal bleeding is healed and I’m completely recovered after three days.” I look at Dr. Emerson. “Forgive me for being skeptical. I’m sure you’ll understand that I’ll want proof.”  
Dr. Emerson purses his lips before opening his mouth. “That’s completely natural. I do have a small piece of evidence. I will completely reassure you that there has been no tampering with your skin beyond anti-bacterial and several bandages when you were found,” he tells me, moving his hand to tug the sleeve of my right arm up and over my shoulder. I grit my teeth, immediately pulling away. What the fuck is he doing? He raises his hand up in a sign of peace. His eyes widen, almost comically. “Okay, okay. My bad. I didn’t realize how creepy that was until now.”  
I glare at him but notice the sincerity in his words and expression. I relax, looking away from him, embarrassed with my reaction. Of course he wouldn’t try anything, he’s a doctor. But then again... “Fine.” I say before overthinking it.  
I look down at my shoulder, pulling the skin more towards the center of my body to where I assume the sleeve of tattoos he was gonna show me was. Whatever he wants to tell me about my tattoos, I don’t know. But I’m guessing it has something to do with them. My shoulder is still covered in the floral tattoos that lead to the dog skull on my arm and gradually transition into intricate designs stopping at my elbow, unlike the full sleeve I have on my right arm. I prepare to see the comforting skull of my dog but furrow my brows when only half of the skull is there. I twist more, hoping somehow that I’ll see the rest of the tattoo continued farther away somehow instead of seeing the expanse of bare flesh with a crude, rough line indicating where my tattoo has disappeared.  
“What the hell?” I ponder, my voice sounding rougher and more aggressive than I intended, looking up at Dr. Emerson as I follow the line to its random and spontaneous path down to my elbow. It’s as if it was wiped away or something. I rub my thumb on it, trying to see if it’s just make up or something. But whatever miracle foundation they used isn’t going away.  
“This is the area of skin that you lost in your fall. It grew back but...” he trails off, allowing me to piece it together.  
I look back at the tattoo, my mind spinning at the fact that if I did lose the skin somehow and it grew back, it would probably look like this. Skin grows back...eventually. Tattoos don’t.  
I let out a breath, looking at him. “So how could this have happened?”   
“Is this the first time that you hear about your regeneration? Have there been signs that lead to you having this ability?” he asks.  
I look at him, astounded by his question. “I was completely normal before. Before I, apparently, fell of a fucking building.” I bite my cheek, shaking my head as I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. “Sorry for cursing.”  
Emerson shakes his head, waving it off. “Ms. Lopez, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you could have been abducted and experimented on,” he continues.  
“Experimented? By who?” I ask. “Some hidden away government conspiring against us?”  
“Well, since HYDRA was apparently hiding within SHIELD like a leech, it’s not an impossibility,” he says.  
I chuckle. “I appreciate the reference but this is real life.”  
“I wish it wasn’t real life,” he mutters. “What, you didn’t hear about it?”  
I ignore his references, not sure I completely understand what he means. “So I don’t have any injuries or anything?”  
“Not any that you haven’t recuperated from,” he tells me.  
I lean back in my bed, still confused.  
“I don’t...this is kinda hard to believe,” I say, putting the x-rays down and looking at him. “It’s just...so out there.”  
“I could always show you your complete file,” he tells me, holding out the file in his hand. “It has all your injuries and blood test results.”  
I reach out tentatively, brows furrowed as I hand back the x-rays. “What do they say?”  
He licks his finger, opening the folder and shuffling through the papers until he stops at one. He pulls it out of its spot, bringing it on top of the folder once he closes it. “So, the test results show that you are a very healthy person,” he begins. “High count in white blood cells, perfect blood pressure, no cholesterol, therefore no clots,” he says absent-mindedly but I perk up. Did I finally get rid of my cholesterol? “One thing that we do notice though is that you have a large amount of collagen and anti-bodies, which does help the body recover from wounds quicker, but not in the way you do.”  
“Well nice to know I won’t get wrinkles, but what does this mean? How is this possible?” I ask.  
Dr. Emerson chuckles. “At least you’re keeping it light,” he comments. I chuckle bitterly. My coping mechanism is keeping me from freaking the fuck out. “Unless you were born this way, there is no way for you to develop these abilities within the last few years without any kind of experimental intervention.”  
I bite my lip. I was in LA and now I’m in New York. I don’t remember how I got here. Is it possible that in that time between LA and here that I somehow…  
I grimace at the absurd thought and look up at him. “How do I even know you’re telling me the truth? For all I know, this could be bullshit. You might not even be a doctor.”  
Dr. Emerson smiles. “Believe me, I can’t act to save my life, nonetheless actually say any of this with a straight face,” he tells me.  
I stare at him. I don’t know if I would ever be honest about something as ridiculous and incredulous as what this guy’s trying to tell me.  
He sighs, opening the folder again before he looks at me and purses his lips, closing the folder again and holding it out to me with both hands. “Here. I think you should see the rest for yourself.”  
I look at him, my eyes narrowed before reaching out with my sore arm and taking it, noticing the alleviating pain. I take it and open the folder with a grimace. There’s multiple pages of paperwork. Most of it is information about me and my injuries when I was found. I frown as I notice that there’s multiple pages with a fill-in-the-blank spots for patient’s injuries and condition. I notice that there are two written on the same day.  
I look at the first one and swallow thickly.  
Apparently, most of my left shoulder, arm and face tissue--basically my entire left side, was missing most of my “epidermal tissue” which, according to my little sister who just started her medical classes, means skin. It was a result of blunt force trauma at an angle. This means that when I impacted the ground, because of the angle, I scraped against the floor. My left arm and left leg were dislocated and the tendons and ligaments in my body were torn. Some muscles were basically disconnected from my bones. My lungs also filled with blood and one of my eye’s retinas ruptured. I shiver thinking about these injuries actually happening to me. I furrow my brows. How the hell did I get so hurt falling from the top of a building? How did my glasses now break?  
I look at Dr. Emerson. “What building did I fall off of? The Empire State?”  
He purses his lip before shrugging.”Witnesses only caught you falling. They didn’t see you jump off or actually fall from the roof of a building. The building closest to you was a sixty story hotel.”  
I bite my lip, looking back down at my papers. I push aside the first page, checking the date to see that this is in fact the day after the first one when I notice the last number on the date. Fifteen…  
Fifteen? As in two thousand and fifteen?  
With a racing heart, I check the other pages. All end with fifteen. I hold the x-rays against the light and, lo and behold, last number is fifteen. September fourteenth two thousand fifteen to be exact. I frown, breathing deeply while trying to calm down. This must be some mistake. I can’t be nine fucking years in the past! It’s not fucking possible. It’s just like with Emerson’s whole body healing ruse. Fucking impossible.  
I shake my head, glaring at Emerson as he watches me intently.  
So he thinks he’s smart, huh? At least use the most recent x-rays if you’re trying to trick someone!  
“Nice try, but at least date these things correctly if you’re trying to fuck with me,” I say, closing the folder and passing it back to the doctor.  
He frowns, looking down at the folder and then at me. “What?”  
“You got x-rays from twenty fifteen. You could’ve at least used some from this year if you wanted to make it convincing, dude,” I growl. I look at the needle in my arm. “Is this even real? Wait, no, that actually in my arm! What’s wrong with you?!”  
“I-I’m confused. What are you saying? Don’t touch that,” Dr. Emerson cries, trying to keep me from yanking out the IV.  
“What, you gonna say I travelled back in time, too?!” I ask, glaring at the man. “How is this legal? Is there cameras?”  
“What do you mean? It is twenty fifteen! Please stop doing that,” he says. “Look! Here’s the calendar,” he says, moving to the door and pulling the calendar off the whiteboard on the wall next to it. He comes back to me, giving it to me gently and then he takes out his phone. I take the calendar and look at the year. Twenty fourteen to twenty fifteen. I immediately dismiss this one but when he hands me his phone, I see the date. September twenty-fifth, twenty fifteen.  
I frown. Okay...that one’s harder to change but…  
“This...this is a trick,” I say, giving it back to him.  
“Why? What year is is supposed to be?” he asks me, pocketing his phone. It’s clear that he’s skeptical.  
“Two thousand twenty-three, obviously,” I tell him.  
“I’m sorry, Ms. Lopez but...you’re wrong,” he tells me.  
I glare at him and he puts the files in front of me once more. “There is something that I really need you to see, however. We’ll try to sort out through this confusion later.”  
I sigh, taking the folder and deciding to play along. I won’t give him the satisfaction of making a scene that this most-likely recorded prank is trying to create. Why haven’t they called it off yet? I caught them!  
I shake my head, opening the folder and looking away from the date on the x-ray, I notice that this is a full-body x-ray.  
I scan the bones, curious about their shape and the fact that these are actually bones. I’ve never had an x-ray before so this is somewhat fascinating. I’ve always wanted an x-ray but I’ve never broken a bone before.  
“This isn’t the one,” Emerson says, moving the x-ray out of the way and shuffling to find one.  
I frown, wondering why I couldn’t just at least look at it.  
He makes a small victorious noise as he pulls one out and hands it to me. I take a moment to look at it, oddly satisfied at the dark translucent sheet. I think it’s one of a hand…  
I bring it up to the light to see it.  
It’s one that includes the forearm as well as the complete hand. I furrow my brows, my throat going dry while my mouth parts.  
Something--no, not something. Three things are jammed between the radius and ulna! They look cramped. All lined up in a row and they look like they’re pressed against both bones. I frown. I look down at my forearm with wide eyes before looking back at the x-ray. Are they trying to tell me that that is inside my arm? Are they trying to make me believe that I have cancer or something?  
“What the heck is that?” I gasp, holding out the x-ray to Emerson.  
He spreads the x-rays out and picks out three more while plucking the one I have out of my hand. “We aren’t too sure but it seems as though you have some objects stuck between your radius and ulna,” he tells me. He picks up one x-ray and holds it beside the one he took from me. He nods, handing both to me once more. “We found them in both of your arms. We thought maybe it could’ve been an implant or something but the material seems to look just like bone.”  
I take both x-rays, holding them up against the light and see a pair of hands with something fucking jammed between the bones. I wonder how they did this. “What is it? They look like Wolverine claws.”  
He shakes his head. “We don’t know. We could try to perform a surgery to remove them,” he suggests. “But it seems like you were born with them.”  
I shake my head, chuckling. “Okay, first off: no. This joke is...kinda getting out of hand. Surgery? Second--”  
“I am a doctor. More importantly, I am your doctor, Ms. Lopez,” he tells me with a very serious tone. He looks me dead in the eye and my stomach sinks at how intense he is about this. He looks absolutely sick of me. “I do not care that you are in denial of some sort but you must listen and believe that what I am telling you is true.”  
That shuts me right up.  
He looks away, continuing. “Now look. The ends here,” he says, gesturing to the ends at my elbow. “They have cartilage at the ends here.” The small areas at the ends of the cluttered bone spikes have a strange, double-rounded end where a lighter layer surrounds it, pressing into grooves of my radius and ulna. I clench my right fist, feeling the muscle in there tense up and something else. Almost like a muscle that I didn’t feel there before. I feel something within me move up and press up into my wrists. Painfully.  
“¡Hija de la chingada!” I gasp, immediately unclenching my hands while holding them away from me as far as I can manage, as if that would somehow separate me from them and I could forget about them altogether.  
That didn’t just happen. That did not happen. This isn’t happening.  
“What?” Dr. Emerson inquires.  
I had a dream where I had Wolverine claws when I was around seventeen after watching Logan. I remember that they hurt. They hurt like hell. I’m not saying that I have them but my overactive imagination is making it seem like I do very much. I can imagine those three spikes in there, uncomfortably tight within the confines of my arm, all shoving through the muscles, forcing their way up.  
“I felt something move! I felt something move!” I cry out, hysterically close to tears. “Holy fuck! I’m freaking the fuck out!”  
The monitors start to beep erratically, adding to my mix of panic. I cry out, holding my head as a sweet smell meets my nostrils. Two different smells of the same kind. I could only describe it as fear. It must be mine and Dr. Emerson.  
“Ms. Lopez, calm down, please!”  
His voice is more grating in my panicked state. I breathe heavily, my lungs burning. Am I breathing too much or not enough?  
“I need some sedative in room 409! Room 409. Sedative. Stat!”  
I look at him. “No, no. Please no!”  
He puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Please, you need to relax.”  
His voice is gentle but he’s so sweaty and his hand feels just a bit clammy. His smell overwhelms his gentleness. I recoil away from his touch, gripping the metal bar that acts as a rail to my bed and pull myself toward it, my grip tight. I hear a creak and I wince, closing my eyes. There’s more steps rushing through the hallway. More than usual. There’s a new smell that they bring and it’s stinging my nose with the chemicals but it also makes me feel numbed and, in a disturbing way, relaxed. It doesn’t combine well with the fear.  
I spill the cup I had in my hands over my glasses and I bring my knees up, my sore muscles forgotten altogether. The doors swing open and more people barge into the room. New smells, new noises. I don’t dare open my eyes.  
I stroke the tattoo on my wrist, breathing deeply and trying to calm down with all the noises and the shouting. Ignore it. Just ignore it all. This sensory input is driving me over the edge. This hasn’t happened before. This isn’t normal.  
I feel hands grab my wrists, covering my tattoo and pulling away my other hand to keep me from touching it. I open my eyes, looking around and seeing two large doctors bringing my arms down to my side while two others reach for my ankles. I grit my teeth, resisting.  
“Let go!”  
They ignore me. There’s tons of yelling and the doctors are all talking to each other.  
“Hurry up!” One grits out.  
“Hold her still!”  
I look to the side at the person who voiced the last comment and I see them holding a needle close to the small entry point where the other needle is on my arm. The place where new drugs are introduced in the IV tube.  
I let out a cry, the feeling of being trapped intensifying when they get a hold of my legs.  
“Hey! We don’t need this much force!”  
That’s Dr. Emerson.  
I look for him, his smell, above all others, coming from the far right. I spot him behind the person grabbing onto my right leg.  
I feel the men with my arms start to finally get a grip holding me down and I glare at them, letting out a wild cry while lashing out, bending my arms up and yanking them back, somehow overwhelming them and even getting to hit them in the face.  
I breath deeply, realizing that I just hurt someone.  
“I’m so sorry--”  
I’m cut off by forceful hands regaining their grip on me and this time I allow them, panting. My hands are clenched and I feel my forearm muscles wound up tight in excitement, itching to be released. I’ve felt this before but I’ve always had a cap on it. It’s never gone unchecked.  
This feels so out of control.  
I watch as they still hold me down, their...fear I guess that smell is, is thick in the air. I’m gonna have to air out this room later.  
Everyone is sweaty and uncomfortably awkward. I just lost it in front of a group of doctors and nurses. How do I come back from that?! I drop my head in shame. I should’ve had more control of myself. I’ve always felt like punching people’s faces or smashing something out of frustration but I never did it. I figured one day that I would snap, but today of all days?!  
They’re all standing now, staring at me in shock and the person with the sedative holding his arms up. His hands are shaking as he steps back and it’s then that I notice the needle he has is empty. The plunger pushed all the way down and I assume that all the sedative is now making its way to my bloodstream. I almost expect, what with the disgustingly sterile and chemical smell of it, that I’d be able to feel it like a cold, thick fluid fill my veins slowly numb my body, but I don’t feel anything. I suppose that I might have exaggerated in my expectations of sedatives, but at least I’m not the only one surprised by my lack of drowsniness.   
“Why isn’t it working?!” The guy holding my left arm whispers to the sedative guy.  
“You did get it, right?”  
I glance at them shyly. “Can you let me go now?”  
I sit there, surrounded by doctors. Slowly, they release me, all looking at each other and myself nervously.  
“Are you sure you want to keep treating this patient, Dr. Emerson?” one of them asks.  
Everyone turns to look at Dr. Emerson who stands off away from the rest of us awkwardly. He looks at us, uncomfortable and shy. “I’ll see to it that the patient does not have another episode. Thank you for responding.”  
“Dr. Emerson, this is your first week here. We can have more experience doctors--” one nurse begins.  
“I’ll continue with the care of this patient, Nurse Hammond. Thank you for responding to my call,” Dr. Emerson continues, as if uninterrupted but his voice is still small and awkward. There’s an admirable determination in his shyness.  
I sit there, leaning back against the seat of the elevated bed, completely alert and conscious, while the doctors look from me to Dr. Emerson. They slowly leave the room, all reluctant and all looking at me in suspicion. Once they’re all out and my nerves begin to calm, I relax, my fists still clenched.  
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Emerson tells me. “I won’t call them again. I didn’t...I panicked.”  
Those words make me look at him again, my expression stoic. Honestly, I feel more embarrassed than I should be for acting so violently. I punched someone. I look at him, trying to ignore my embarrassment. He does look regretful. But he also looks relieved and nervous. I frown. He smells like it too. I grimace. Is smelling another thing? Do I have to smell things? I’d be fine without that.  
“It’s okay. We both overreacted…” I let out a breath, wringing my hands. “I’ll accept the apology.”  
He nods, smiling slightly before it falls. “I’m...I’m new at this doctor thing. I…” he sighs, kicking his leg. “I was treating a person today. I heard an enhanced got brought in and I jumped the first chance I got to treat one.”  
“An enhanced?” I ask, looking at him. “Like...we not ‘like’, just...me.”  
He nods. “Yeah. You guys are popping up everywhere now. You, those new Avengers...Hell’s Kitchen.”  
I frown, ignoring the fact that he just grouped me in with the “enhanced” now and listening to his words. He made MCU references before but I thought he was just a geek. I frown, thinking about my abilities and the hospital. Metro-General...I have heard that name...in Daredevil and Doctor Strange. But it’s not real...right?  
“You know, I was saved by one of you once. I was hoping that maybe it was you but it didn’t seem likely once I saw you,” he tells me.  
I look at him, urging him to continue while I spiral in my mind, trying to understand whether or not this is some kind of joke.  
“I lived in Hell’s Kitchen for a while. I was walking home from a friend’s house alone. Rookie mistake,” he chuckles before clearing his throat. “I was mugged pretty quickly. Or at least almost mugged. A woman about your height,” he gestures to me. “She came along. Threw ‘em all around and beat the shit out of them. Gave me my stuff back too.”  
I look at him and my mind immediately reels back to Jessica Jones as the culprit. But only if she were real.  
“But she was pretty thin and her hair was different. She could’ve tossed those doctors back like it was nothing,” he tells me. “I’m sure you could’ve, too.” His hand grazes the metal railing that I was clutching onto, drawing my attention to it. My jaw drops when I see the dented bar, right where I was clutching it in my struggle. “But you don’t really look like her.”  
I look down at myself, briefly agreeing that I’m too big to be Jessica Jones. I’m pretty muscular. I look down at my arms, furrowing my brows. I’m actually a bit more muscular than before. I’ve been trying hard to build my muscles the past couple months. I look at Dr. Emerson. “I owe her my life. They had a knife at my throat.”  
I nod, taking in his story while finally calming down at the intake of information.  
...no. That’s crazy. Stop thinking these things, Roberta. You’re not in the Marvel Universe. I’m close to shaking my head to tell myself that that’s impossible but I don’t want any questions from Dr. Emerson.  
“You can stay here the night and check yourself out tomorrow. We’ll take new x-rays today to check for any new developments,” he tells me. I nod. “I’ll leave you to process things.”  
He leaves quicker than anything I’ve seen. I stare after the door as it shuts and the lingering smell of Dr. Emerson stays, as well as all the other doctors. I lie back, stretching out my legs. My right hand stays at my chest with my glasses and I lift them, looking at them and noticing that they’re not as untouched as I thought. Spiderweb pattern cracks riddle the lens, refracting the things that you can see through them. I sigh before perching them on my nose again, immediately seeing the blurry world that everyone else with normal sight sees, only with added fragmentation because of the cracks. I frown. My eyes were really bad.  
Lowering them, I sit there for a moment. Processing what I’ve been told and believing what I’ve been told are very different things.   
I’ve processed it fine but I’m having trouble believing it. I remember a time when I would’ve given close to anything to be in the Marvel Universe. To meet my heroes and to distract myself with the fantastical happenings of another world. Now that I’m being told something that I’ve wanted to hear for years, it’s told to me when I’m over it and I started to move forward with my life. The youth in me is already on board with believing this nonsense but the mature part of myself is telling me that this is total bullshit and that I shouldn’t just buy into something because it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time.  
I look at my hands, wondering about the extra bones in my arms. I felt them move. I swear that I could feel them move earlier. I briefly wonder if there is something in there. I start to wonder even more if it’s exactly what I’m thinking they are.  
I hold them up, bending my elbows. I twist my wrists, remembering the discomfort and minor pain when I felt them move up. I briefly consider what having Wolverine claws would do to me physically. I think about them pressing into my wrists. Would they cut into the cartilage and ligaments between the carpals to get through? I wince at the thought before looking back at my arms.  
I’ve been told that I’m able to heal quickly. So could the Wolverine. He also said that they hurt every time that they came out. I never thought too deep into it. I thought it was just breaking the skin to stab through. I never considered them stabbing through the wrists. But if he heals quickly, it must be a minor thing, right?  
I look down at my arms, wondering if I should try it. I instinctively shake my head, scoffing at the thought. I’m just crazy. I should ignore this and find my way to an airport and get home so that I could get home, see my family and finish the script I’ve been hired to do. Because of course, if you can’t see it, it’s like it’s not even there.  
I prepare to lie back and ignore it but the vivid sensation of something pushing up against my wrist bones is too strong. I sit straight, rigid as the temptation to at least try it gets me to look down at my hands again.  
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. I suck on my lower lip and lower my left arm. The one with the tattoo. I let out a deep breath. Might as well just prove whether I’m crazy or not.  
I clench my hand and focus, trying to imagine what it would feel like to try to push bones out of my arm. It’s bizarre but I immediately feel something else in my arm. A subconscious instinct is triggered and it’s almost as natural as flexing my hand to move my fingers. I frown, staring at my arm and forcing my eyes to stay open.  
I watch as something underneath my arm shifts. It could be muscle but I notice that it is accompanied with the sensation of something pressing up into my wrists. I bite my lip, digging my nails into my palm as I shake, staring at my arms.  
There’s resistance at my wrists, as I imagine it would, and I take a deep breath, clenching harder before an intense, stinging pain makes me gasp. I relax my hand and arm before holding my hand while it shakes in shock. I breathe shakily before shaking my head. Nope. It’s real. I know it’s real now. I’m not gonna take ‘em out now but I know that they’re there.  
I look around, wondering where my things are in an effort to distract myself. I hope my phone isn’t that jacked up. I had it in my sweater pocket.  
I bite my lip, looking at the door and I listen to the steps outside still rushing and the good doctor’s smell is not coming anytime soon. I bring my legs over the edge of the bed. I slowly slide down until my toes touch the ground and I ignore the shock of how cold the tiles are. I drop onto my heels and immediately have to lock my knees because I felt my legs threatening to bend.  
I stand for a moment, recuperating myself and preparing myself to walk. Taking a deep breath, I walk forward, biting my lip at my wobbly steps as I move to stand in the center of the room. I clutch my glasses in my hand and I look around, scanning for a bag I know has the words “Personal Possessions” on it.  
It doesn’t take long. I find it in a cabinet inside the counters against the wall. I go back to my bed while I clutch onto my bag with my things. The only things that will probably make sense to me.  
I settle myself back in my bed and cross my legs, nestling the bag in the hole they create. I sit there for a while, breathing in the smell of my leather wallet and polyester clothing. I frown. It has another smell too. It’s blood. I almost gag at the smell. Not because the smell of blood disgusts me but because it might be evidence of what they’ve been saying.  
I open the bag and reach in, feeling a sweater and stretchy material of my yoga pants. I pull out my sweater and bite my lip. It’s my USC sweater. Naturally, it’s red. But the stains of blood don’t blend in to hide on the tattered left side of it. I hold it up and I see the tattered ends where half of my sleeve goes missing. I frown. How could this happen just hitting the ground?  
I put that down, reaching into the pockets and finding them empty. I guess they emptied the pockets. I reach into the bag again and, this time, I take out my leggings and feel relieved that I don’t see any tears. I stretch them out, inspecting them in their entirety and put them down. I can probably wear these again when I check out of here. I reach into the bag again and I pull out my bra and my flimsy shirt; the one that I remember wearing in the parking lot before waking up here.  
Looking over it, I can’t tell if the splatters of red help add “pizzaz” to the sharp, clean black and white design or if it disgusts me. I frown, almost whining. I made this shirt. I made a design, got a shirt and then silkscreened the design onto it myself. It’s the Venus symbol with triangular designs around it. Then I cut it up into a muscle shirt so that I could be comfortable in it. My uncle called it the “Illuminati Feminist” shirt.  
I grimace now that my blood is all over it. I don’t even want to wear it anymore.  
I drop the shirt, sighing while leaning back. The light filtering in through the window is starting to turn orange and I purse my lips. I feel like Dr. Emerson will be coming soon.  
Finally, I dump whatever’s left in the bag into my lap and I almost cry when I see my phone. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. Stuck with my since junior year of high school. Cracked twice, system cleansed about five times. I frown. I got it in two thousand fifteen. Would this thing basically be brand new? Looking back down at it, I see that the massive crack on the screen answers my question: “Hell no.”  
I quickly grab it, noticing that it’s ice cold and smile. I’ll warm it up real-quick. I press the power button and frown when the screen doesn’t light up. I sigh, exasperated. I need to charge it.  
I look at the other contents that spilled out of the bag and find the phone charger that I carry with me quickly. I look around for an outlet and find one at the counter. I stand and set up my phone to charge before going back to my bed and looking over the other things I had in my pockets.  
I have a pack of gum, my wallet, a couple of ligas and my black bandana.  
I place the items back inside the bag with my glasses, save for my wallet. Placing the bag on the chair next to my bed, I check my wallet and find twenty-three dollars, as well as my large collection of expired gift cards and coupons. I pull out my credit-card, my Triple-A card and my Driver’s License. Sighing, I wonder if I exist in this world before another thought hits me. Do I exist in this world? If so, does the rest of my family exist? Would it be the same or would it be different?  
My mind begins to follow the different route. Particularly, a route involving different events happening July 22, 2014.  
Would Yasmen have survived that day on the mountains? Would this world’s Roberta have seen her sister’s corpse that day?  
My being begins to burn with jealousy at the thought. What the hell? Why did this world’s Roberta get to keep her sister? What did she do that I didn’t? Is she just a better person? Did the Universe decide that this Roberta keep her sister while I attended her funeral?  
I shake my head of those poisonous thoughts, feeling my body react to the bitterness and anger. That doesn’t matter. What matters is getting back to my world where my family is. I need to get back before I’m deemed dead. That would be about six months, right? Yeah, I think so.  
So I have six months to somehow travel through dimensions to get back home…  
I lean back in my bed, sinking into plans that I can act on when I leave the this hospital. I could always go to the New York sanctum and try to talk to the Ancient One. She's self-aware of the Multiverse. Maybe she can help me get back home or something.  
I weave through my thoughts, coming up with other plans and solutions for my problem until I sink into unconsciousness, unsure of whether I stopped making hypothetical plans or not.  
I wake up the next morning to the smell of coffee. Opening my eyes to the sunlight filtering through the open window is not the best way for me to wake up. My usual rising hours are twelve noon and then I stay in bed for an hour or two on my phone.  
I nearly jump up in my bed. My phone.  
I drop out of the bed, walking toward the counter when I noticed myself be held back by something attached to my elbow. I frown. What the hell?  
I turn back to see the IV drip put back in my elbow and I roll my eyes. I mean it's considerate but...  
I remove it from my elbow carefully noticing that, while I looked away from my elbow to put the needle in the tray next to my bed, the little pierce of the needle on my elbow is gone. I rub it with my thumb, frowning. It doesn't hurt. What the hell?  
I drop my arm, my stomach twisting. Oh yeah. I have super healing.  
I continue on my way to get my phone and I unplug it from the charger, seeing the green battery inform me that it's une hundred percent charged.  
I smile, powering it on while I jump onto the bed, settling back into the blankets to warm up my toes and I unlock it, going t the music app and tapping on the playlist labeled STYDGTH--"Songs That Yasmin Didn't Get To Hear".  
My mind is filled with alternative and rock music. I walk around the room for a bit, feeling slightly restless. I grab a new cup from the water gallon and start to fill myself a cup until the door opens and I jump, spinning to face the person walking in and relax slightly when I see that it’s Dr. Emerson.  
He looks at me before noticing the bag on the chair next to my bed and he sighs. “You’re not supposed to be standing, nonetheless walking.”  
I wave it off, scoffing. “I fell of a fucking building and I’m fine. I’m sure I could handle walking a few steps.”  
He shakes his head before pulling out the clipboard. “The x-ray is prepared. You ready to go?”  
I chew on my cheek in consideration. Eh, what harm can an x-ray do? I nod, throwing my legs over the edge of the bed and lowering myself.  
“Wait!” Dr. Emerson interrupts. I look at him with a confused frown. He scrambles to grab a flattened object with wheels and I’m familiar enough with it to know that it’s a folded wheelchair. I roll my eyes when he unfolds it and brings it to my bedside. I look at him with raised brows. “It’s standard procedure.”  
I shake my head before going along with it and taking a seat in the chair, thinking about the times I would push my abuelito around in a wheelchair. I lift my feet onto the foot supports and I feel the chair beginning to be pushed. I rest my hands on the armrests as Dr. Emerson pushes me past the open door. I close my eyes and scrunch my nose at the flourescent lighting as well as the sting of anti-bacterial in my nostrils. All the new smells and the new sounds are close to overwhelming. I take deep breaths, trying hard to calm down and relax. It’s not enough to get me to freak out it’s just...it’s just a lot to take in…  
The discomfort is short lived because we get to the x-ray room soon.  
“Alright,” Dr. Emerson says. The sound of a door opening catches my attention and I open my eyes. I see a door pushed open and we’re inside a room with a bed and a machine with large tubes protruding from it attached to the ceiling. I assume that this is an x-ray because I’ve seen something similar to this in my dentist’s office. I frown when Dr. Emerson steps up ahead of me and gestures for me to stand. He then points loosely to the bed and moves to the computer in the room, logging onto it.  
I obey him silently, perching myself on the edge of the bed and swinging my legs quietly. I look around curiously. There’s a lot to look at right now.  
As soon as Dr. Emerson finishes typing into the computer, he then moves to a wall where some black boards are stacked up and he takes one. Next to that is a rack with aprons hang and I frown. That’s what the would put on my chest when they x-rayed my mouth when I was in the dentist.   
Moving to me, he keeps close to the wall, tucking the board in his armpit. He places the black board on the bed, just a bit beside me and ties the strings of his apron around his neck then around his waist. I watch him do this curiously.  
Once the apron is on properly, he picks up the board once more and places it on a counter beside against the wall beside the bed. He reaches up and grabs onto a handle on the side of the large white box that I assume is the x-ray camera.  
“Lie down for a moment,” he tells me.  
I do that, leaning back and awkwardly keeping myself steady while he lowers the x-ray even more and he holds it steady over face. I furrow my brows. Is this safe?  
“Close your eyes,” he instructs. I do and he clicks something and the machine makes a noise. I open them once I hear him move the machine again.  
This time he moves it over my chest and he takes another picture. At least, that’s what I assume he’s doing.  
He moves the x-ray to my hip when I hear something odd. It sounds like a strange clicking, but it sounds oddly familiar. There’s a new smell too. It’s clean and fresh. Very heavy as well. I frown. It’s fucking cologne.  
“Sit up.”  
I snap out of it and I do. He brings up a chair from against the wall and pats it. I take a seat and he picks up the board and places it on the bed beside me. He takes my arms and places it on the plate.  
“This is to get a closer look at the bones in your arm,” he tells me. I look at him as he’s preoccupied moving the x-ray over my arm.  
“Where are these x-rays going?” I ask him.  
He clicks the thing that I assume captures the image. “It’s going into hospital records.”  
I frown, confused but relieved. “So you’re not going to send this anywhere or anything? Nothing for research?”  
He looks at me. “Do you want it to be sent? We could send it to a medical research group famous for doing genetic and biological research on strange mutations and odd phenomena.”  
I shake my head. “No! No. I prefer that this stays under wraps.”  
He nods. “I thought so. In order to send this kind of patient information, it has to be sent with patient consent.”  
I nod, contemplating this. That’s good. I hope that they could keep secrets because I don’t want any attention while I’m here, trying to find a way back to my world.  
“Could you place your other arm there?”  
I nod, snapping out of my thoughts and moving my other hand to lie on top of the black plate.  
I perk up when, after the click of the x-ray taking a snapshot, footsteps approach the door. It’s a pair and they’re very apparent, since this section we were at is staff and patients only.  
A knock on the door makes me jump.  
“What the hell?” Dr. Emerson says. He looks toward the door and I turn my attention to it too, my nerves frazzled for some unknown reason. I smell something weird. It smells close to a sedative but stronger and a whole lot more moist, if that makes any sense.  
He places the x-ray back up against the ceiling before he moves to the door but grabs the wheelchair first, pushing it out of the way.  
He opens the door and peeks out, keeping it closed for the most part. “Can I help you?”  
“Yes. Are you Dr. Emerson?”  
The voice is smooth and I could smell the person’s breath from all the way over here. The mint gum doesn’t hide the tobacco he chewed earlier.  
Dr. Emerson nods. “I am.”  
“Are you the doctor treating Roberta Lopez?” he asks.  
Dr. Emerson straightens before glancing at me briefly. He lowers his head before reluctantly answering “Yes.”  
There’s a pause.  
“I am Doctor Cornelius,” the cleaner one introduces. “We represent the Canadian government’s department that looks into genetic anomalies and phenomena. Intelligence has indicated that Ms. Lopez possesses some qualities that are in our studies’ area of interest,” another man explains. This guy is cleaner but the way he smells doesn’t help me ignore what he just said.  
“Excuse me, but can I ask what department you represent?” Dr. Emerson asks suspiciously.  
“Department K,” the other one, the first one, answers. “Essex Corporation, to be exact.”  
“How do you know about Ms. Lopez?” Dr. Emerson asks.  
“Information was sent to us by the hospital,” Dr. Cornelius explains.  
I could feel Dr. Emerson frown but my stomach twists. Fucking knew that this hospital was no good. “But you shouldn’t know that. The hospital can’t do that.”  
“Listen, son,” the nameless one says. “You’re young so you don’t know the ropes yet--”  
“No,” Dr. Emerson interrupts, making me listen to him more intently. “I know the hospital policies in and out. We cannot share patient information with any outside parties without patient consent.”  
The men are quiet for a moment.  
“Is Ms. Lopez in there with you, Dr. Emerson?” Dr. Cornelius asks.  
“No. I am with another patient,” Dr. Emerson lies smoothly. I feel myself relax as I look at him. He knows something’s up too.  
It’s the quiet before a storm. I can feel it as I tense up, my relief gone and replaced with dread.  
The door that Dr. Emerson is holding open is pushed in and it smacks into his face. I hear him grunt as he lands on the floor while I jump to my feet, breathing heavily and my senses haywire.  
The door is opened again when I see a man in a white labcoat step in and a man in a black suit follow after him, closing the door behind him.  
I stand low, my hands held up defensively. I’ve spent the past seven years learning all kinds of crazy self-defense. Jesus help me if boxing and krav maga fail me now.  
I watch Dr. Emerson scramble away from them from his spot on the floor. I watch the man in the suit reach into the lapel of his jacket and grab something. His hand returns with a semi-automatic gun and my heart drops. This isn’t happening. This can’t be fucking happening.  
“Listen, Doctor. We have papers and everything. It would be official that she checked herself out and no trouble would come to you or the hospital,” the man in the suit says.  
“You have to understand, Dr. Emerson,” Dr. Cornelius begins. “Our research is crucial and that woman,” he points to me. “Is the key to what we’ve been searching for. You must understand as a man of science that, to save lives, some must be lost to perfect the cure.”  
Dr. Emerson stands and he looks at me. I stare at him, praying that he doesn’t take it. He looks back at the pair of men and he shakes his head. “This isn’t right. I’m calling security and you will be banned from this hospital.”  
Dr. Emerson moves to make his way around them but is pushed back by the man in the black suit. He falls to the ground before the man in the black suit kneels down with his knee on Dr. Emerson’s gut.  
“Take care of him,” Dr. Cornelius says.  
My hairs stand on end at his words. That only means one thing.  
I let out a wild cry, moving forward and lunging myself at the man in the black suit, ignoring Dr. Cornelius. I collide with his chest and knock us both down. We land in a heap but I immediately pin him down and strike his face and neck with my elbow and my fist, quickly rolling off of him to flee, but this isn’t self-defense. This is a fight. I just incited a fucking fight.  
I shake my head, looking at Dr. Emerson as he pulls himself to his feet and backs up immediately. The man on the floor coughs, breathing heavily as he rolls to his stomach and rises to his knees, recovering from my attack.  
“Fucking bitch!” he hacks, raising his gun to point at me. I lower myself, prepared to rip that fucking thing out of his hand.  
A gentle hand rises between us and I turn my attention partially to Dr. Cornelius.  
“Now, now. Settle down. We don’t want to fight you,” he tells me. “You represent something valuable to us.”  
I glare at them. “Fuck you!”  
They stare at me for a moment before Dr. Cornelius chuckles. “Quite a spitfire, isn’t she.”  
“I don’t give a damn!” the other one heaves, rising to his feet. “Give me the chloroform.”  
I stiffen as he takes out a handkerchief from his pocket and Dr. Cornelius plucks a bottle out of his breast pocket. I watch as the suited one pops the cap off of the bottle and douses the handkerchief in the liquid and the smell that I sensed earlier hits me like a truck. This is the numb, wet smell. It’s chloroform.  
The man walks forward and reaches out to me, prepared to grab me. I tense up, already knowing what my next move is.  
He takes one step closer and I move forward quickly, throwing a left hook, stunning him before grabbing his outstretched right arm, turning back and bringing my weight forward, pulling his arm over my shoulder, bringing the rest of the man’s massive body.  
He lands with a thump and I spin around, facing Dr. Cornelius but looking at Dr. Emerson. I shove Cornelius aside, reaching out for Emerson and grabbing his wrist, moving to the door before a shot rings out and waves of pain ring throughout my body.  
I cry out in agony, dropping to my knees as I clutch my hand. I look down, seeing blood splatter the floor. It isn’t until now that I realize how bizarre it is to see a hole straight through your own hand. Crying out once more, I look up and glare when I find the man in the suit standing and recovering, a smoking gun in his fucking hand.  
Ignoring the pain, driven by some kind of wild anger and rage to fucking kill him. I lunge at him and swing wildly.  
My fist collides with his face and his own meaty hammer-fist meets my gut. My breath leaves my body as he grabs my throat and lifts me up.  
Somehow, through all the rage, my self-defense instincts tell me to kick up, right into his chin. I do and he howls in pain, loosening his grip.  
I’m dropped and stand over the man as he heaves in pain, clutching his chin. He growls as he raises his hand with the gun and rush forward to grab the gun when he fires. Straight into my gut.  
Pain rips through my core and my breath leaves my body. I double over in pain, gasping for air as I watch the man stand. I drop to my knees, overwhelmed by the pain and I hear a chuckle.  
“Not so tough now, bitch.”  
The disgusting tobacco and sweaty smell makes me shake. How the fuck does this man--this disgusting fuck--get the best of me? My blood boils, the pain in my abdomen forgotten. I don’t know what him and Cornelius have planned but I can’t fucking let them have me!  
I cry out, my muscles tense as a pain rivaling the pain of being shot tears through my arms, spearing through my wrists and bursting past the skin of my knuckles. I cry out in agony, looking at my hands, eyes bleary in pain as I see bloody spikes protruding from my hands. Three between each knuckle of my fingers. The base of the spikes are red and angry but are quickly fading, along with the pain. The only thing left is anger. I look up at the man in the suit, who’s in just as much shock as I am. I grit my teeth, tensing up for the fight of my life.  
I cry out as I reel my arm back, swinging wildly as my fist meets the man’s shoulder, piercing into his arm and blood bursts out.  
I ignore the cold chill down my body at the thought of spilling this man’s blood. He shot me twice. Fuck him.  
I pull my fist back, my other hand already swinging to his chest as I bring my other hand up, prepared to swing again.  
I feel his fist meet my face as my claws are imbedded in his chest. I stare at him. He’s being impaled at this very moment but he’s still fucking fighting me? I can’t help but be surprised by that.  
Once punch nails me right in the face, colliding hard with my nose and I feel a crack. The pain is minor, though. I bare my teeth as I feel blood gush out of my nose. I taste copper in my mouth. I watch as the man pulls back his arm and I let out a yell when I bring my arm down on his arm hard, stabbing through it and pinning it to his chest. I prepare to yank my other hand out of his chest when I feel explosions of pain rake over me as the deafening sound of shots fired rings throughout the room. I yank out my other claw with a cry as I punch his face in anger and pain. My claw penetrates his skull and I don’t think about it until now, when I feel his body slump down and my other hand imbedded in his chest with his hand pinned falls with him. I gasp, pulling back and watching him land in a heap. I killed him. I fucking killed him.  
My rage leaves me and dread replaces it in tons. I almost fall to my knees shaking. What the fuck did I just do?  
I feel a prick against my shoulder blade and I spin around with a cry, swinging wildly. Stabs of pain in my ribs protesting my movement but the pain seems to be fading. The sound of metal clinking against the floor makes me look down. Droplets of blood splash against the cold tile. Droplets coming from me. Three bullets are there. Another joins it, making another clink and I realize that the clinking is bullets that are falling out of me.  
I ponder at that, slightly dazed. I must be going into shock. Looking up, I see Cornelius standing there with a syringe and an amazed smile in his face.  
“Fascinating...” he breathes. I grimace, staggering in my feet to stand straight. Looking around for an escape, my gaze finds the ground, following a pool of blood that leads me to a stained red lab coat. I gasp, ignoring the fading pain as I move forward, falling to my knees with tears prickling my eyes when I see Dr. Emerson’s ghastly face, eyes unseeing as they stare up into the heavens. I gasp for breath as a sob escapes me. Holy shit. He’s dead. He’s fucking dead. How did this happen? He helped me. He tried to help me.  
“How extraordinary!” Cornelius’ voice breaks the mourning.  
I tremble on my knees, standing again but the rapid movement slightly making my head hurt. I zero in on Cornelius and I lunge forward with a cry. He seems to move exceedingly fast, as he steps to the side easily and I can’t stop myself from falling to the floor. I land on the floor with my elbows and knees braced against the floor. I shake my head. No. I’m not going into shock. I’ve been drugged.  
“Hm. You’d think that one elephant tranq would work,” Cornelius mutters behind me. I feel another prick and I swing behind me, standing to my feet as I sway.  
No. This can’t be happening. This can’t be fucking happening right now…  
I stagger forward, trying to focus on Cornelius and I swing forward before landing on the floor, my temple hitting the floor and suddenly lacking the energy to stand.  
“No….” I breathe before finally losing consciousness.

It’s the sensation of rumbling that brings me to consciousness. It’s repetitive and, amid the slow, muddy thoughts, I recognize that I shouldn’t be here.  
Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes, looking around and lifting my arms, tensing up when I feel them unable to do so. I look down and notice thick, black restraints holding my wrists down, as well as my shoulders. I shake my wrists, looking around when I feel hands push down my shoulders and I look up, noticing people sitting opposite of each other inside the cabin that I’m in.  
Looking to the left, I see someone crouching over me and then a small pinprick pokes at the flesh within my elbow and I take a deep breath, trying to stay awake but unable to before falling into the darkness again.  
I resurface every once in a while, each time opening my eyes to different environments.  
I open my eyes and keep them open this time on a thick, rough material. I’m lying down within a room and, from what I can see, the walls are made of concrete. I lie there for a bit before bringing my elbows up and leaning up on them, bringing myself up enough to feel what I’m lying down in. I look around and my first observation is that this room is small. I look towards the front of the room, the end opposite to be because I’m pressed up against a wall, and I see a door. It has a small window that’s covered with a sliding hatch. I look down at the spot I lie in and see that it’s a floating bunk. I swing my legs over the edge and sit up, leaning forward with my hands gripping the edge. I then notice that I’m no longer in my bloody, blue hospital gown. Donned in a dull gray shirt and gray pants with no pockets adds to this dark, gloomy prison.  
I’m in a prison. I don’t have to have been in a prison before to know that this is a fucking prison.  
It smells dusty in here. I press my hands down on the mattress and look down at it. The edges are softer and thicker than the thin, flattened center. This has been used by someone before.  
I stand, walking forward and inspecting the sliding hatch. I grimace as I bring my hand up to it and slide to the left. No. This isn’t moving that way. I switch directions and slide to the right and there’s a small amount of movement but that stops immediately, like if it got caught in something. I growl, dropping my hand. It’s got a lock on the other side.  
I go inspect the edged of the door and growl in deeper frustrated when I notice that there’s no knob on this side on purpose. I go back to the floating bunk and sit back down, gripping the edge of the bunk, annoyed. What the fuck do I do?  
I can’t tell when seconds become minutes. When I don’t keep track of time, anything feels like hours, so I can’t tell if it took hours for the guards to burst into the room and knock me down, or if it’s been ten minutes.  
It doesn’t change that my nose is broken and I taste blood in my mouth with my face pressed against the rough concrete floor. The surprise and their speed is what gave them the ability to pin my hands down.  
I thrash wildly, crying out in protest and cursing them and their families as they flip me over. Something thick and metal is clamped around my wrists, not allowing me to fight back. It’s this restraint that keeps me from slicing into each and every one of these fuckers right now.  
That thought gets me to stop thrashing while they heft me up. Huh. I seem to have gotten comfortable enough to just think about slicing and dicing people. I close my eyes and press my lips together tightly. What the hell is wrong with me? How the hell did I go from a fucking pacifist to just being casual about slicing people up with fucking Wolverine claws? And don’t even get me started on the claws…  
I’m shoved forward by a guard. Four other people surround me and I finally get a good look at my prison. There’s more doors. An almost endless hall of doors and, based on the smells and sounds, there’s more captive than me.  
I glance at my immediate captors inconspicuously. They seem to be wearing military uniform, or at least dark camo armor with guns and helmets. I count their size and the inevitable fighting experience. I can’t right right now. I’d be outnumbered and outmatched.  
I continue my walk as they lead me at gunpoint to wherever the fuck I’m being taken. We soon leave the hall of prison cells and enter an open area of cages and hoses. We pass by that and walk through a hallway with windows into other rooms and I look into the windows and immediately regret ever looking.  
They’re opening people up. Literally opening them up. One person has their face peeled back and their chest and stomach clamped back.  
I clench my teeth shut and look forward, tempted to run out of here and get out. I shiver at the thought of being one of those people. If look at the guards and then at my restrained wrists. If I stay longer.  
We approach a glass door and looking through the glass, my blood runs cold. It’s a room full of tanks of water with a vault door on the top.  
I falter in my steps as we approach the, now open, door. Guns press into my back, the implied threat making me step forward reluctantly. What’s going to happen?  
We step into the room and some doctors--more likely scientists--step over to greet the guards. They glance at me curiously.  
“Is this the special one?” One scientist asks.  
She’s talking to the lead guard and the guard nods. She gives me a once over. “So she’s the newest one? When did you even get her? She seems very lucid.” she asks.  
“She’s going to be the next candidate for the Weapon X program.”  
My heart falters. Weapon X...weapon X? Really? I thought that the X-men property belonged to Fox? How is this even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? They stay as far from each other as they can.  
“We have to perform tests to determine whether she can survive the procedure or not,” she tells the guard with a frown. “It’s not an easy procedure. It’s purely hypothetical at this point. Few of the experiments have been somewhat successful, but all have had long lasting side effects that ultimately led to infection or death.”  
I stiffen up, trying hard not to tremble in fear. I experimentally pull at the clamps, testing their strength. I grit my teeth subtly in frustration when they refuse to budge. This is going to be difficult.  
“Can you please just get it done,” the guard urges. His tone is less than cordial.  
“We have many approved test subjects in waiting but you want us to rush through this particular testing?” the scientist rebukes.  
“Cornelius’ personal request. He says that this one is different from the rest,” the guard tells me. He scoffs. “Says her regeneration is practically instantaneous and fast.”  
The scientist scoffs, looking at me. “Impossible. Even with our current subjects, it takes days for them to heal one bone.”  
I raise my brows, trying hard not to breath heavily in anger. They have others like me? How do they catch all of these people under the radar?  
“Apparently, not just that,” another guard comments.  
The scientist looks at that guard with narrowed eyes. “Then what else warrants my time and work?”  
“She has some kind of mutation. Extra bones in her body that shoot out like claws,” the guard says.  
The scientist rolls her eyes, expression disbelieving. “Let’s get on with this.” She gestures to the tank with a nod. “Go get her in. I’ll prepare the computers.” She turns to another scientist. “Muller. Get the transmitters on her.”  
The other scientist she talked to is an older man. His hair is peppery, starting to gray, and he has crows feet in the corner of his eyes but the edges of his mouth sag down, revealing a lot of time frowning, just as he is now. He nods tersely as I’m pulled away. I move my gaze to the tank and look around, not moving as the circle of guards move that way. The guns they have poke at my spine, making me shiver with discomfort. I look around, twisting my head to look at the scientist.  
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking at the group of scientists that are making their way up some stairs to a separate cabin with computers in it. There’s windows all along the front of them to see the events going on in the room we’re in without getting dirty I suppose. “What are you gonna do?”  
Looking around, I part my mouth while I breathe heavily. None of them are answering me. I look at the one scientist that’s in our group and open my mouth.  
The clamps around my wrist yank me forward and I’m interrupted from talking to him. I gasp out, staring at the guard yanking me by the clamps and glare, yanking back twice as hard. I manage to make him stumble before something hits me over the head. Something hard. I grunt, stumbling forward while hand tightly grip my shoulder and arms. I shout, kicking up and struggling in their grip.  
“Let me go!” I shout. “What are you doing?!”  
My thrashing legs are grabbed and held tightly by other guards and I thrash around wildly. Now I’m not even being dragged. I’m being lifted up the stairs. “Let me go! Fucking let me go!”  
The words are useless as I’m still brought up the stairs to the top of the water tank. I twist as best as I could and notice that, with the position they’re lifting me in, that my fists are touching their shoulders and arms. I stare at the guards, pausing in my struggle for a moment. They’re all preoccupied with restraining my individual limbs and I look at the two guards holding me up by my arms. I stare at them curiously and they don’t move from their spots near my fists.  
I grit my teeth, bracing myself for the pain when I close my eyes prepared for the pain.  
It feels like the inside of my arms is being shredded and like my hand just got split into three individual parts and the skin between my knuckles gushes with blood, some landing on my neck, but it stops quickly. I cry out in pain before I hear shouts and curses. I twist my body, taking advantage of their surprise before lashing out with my cuffed arms, stabbing my claws into the arm of just one of the guards holding onto me, only slashing the other one. I swing my legs, trying my luck but only hitting one of the guards. With my free leg, I kick the other guard’s face, not holding back any strength. I let out a loud grunt as I kick her again, finally able to pry my other leg free.  
I consider trying to kick the guard to the left of me even though he seems a bit far for my legs to reach before changing my mind and bending my abdomen up, bringing my legs around the head of the guard that my claws impaled and bring my weight forward, making him fall over and landing awkwardly against the stairs but with me on top. I remove my claws from his shoulder before yanking them out and bringing them down on his neck. I grit my teeth as scorching hot bullets hit my side endlessly and I turn to look at the one guard left conscious with her gun aimed at me. I hold the restraints in front of my face, blocking the bullets from hitting my face and piercing my brain. I’d prefer to have to have to pull bullets from my arm than watch them fall out of my head with no clue who I am.  
I double over once the bullets concentrate on my stomach and it feels like my stomach is on fire. I begin to cough and I feel something come up my throat. I cough out and I notice that that spit that lands on the gray, metal restraints isn’t clear. It’s red.  
I involuntarily fall forward and the butt of a gun makes sharp contact with the back of my head. It feels like I’ve been pushed deeper into my subconsciousness for a moment before opening my eyes again to a bright light. I’m tempted to smile, thinking that this might be the end until the light moves side to side, revealing the face of the scientist that seems to be the director of this whole operation in this room.  
“Still alive. And her abdomen is regrowing already. How...how is this possible?” she says, her voice foggy and unclear in my mind.  
“This is extraordinary!”  
“Imagine all the things we can discover with her DNA!”  
The scientist turns the flashlight in her hand off as the image becomes more clear. I blink, squinting my eyes as I notice the other scientists standing over me, along with the sole guard that I haven’t incapacitated.  
“Get the wires on her. Quick!” the scientist says. There’s scrambling as I blink more, groaning as the soreness in my body becomes more apparent. I frown when I flex my fingers, feeling something between them, separating them. I frown. My claws are still out.  
My clothes are ripped off and hands are all over my body. And not in the sexual way.  
They stick things on me. Stickers or something. Most are on my braless chest, some are on my temples and I weakly raise my arms, growling in protest as they place some on my neck and my hips.  
I swing wildly once I built up enough strength. One of the other scientists squeals and I see that I nicked her cheek.  
“Careful!” the guard snaps, bringing the butt of her gun down on my forehead. I groan in pain, my head throbbing in pain. “Keep your distance. Be quick!”  
“There!” the lead scientist calls. “Done! Get her in the tank quick!”  
I’m lifted by my waist and thrown over the shoulder of the guard. I grunt as I’m settled on her shoulders, her joint digging into my belly painfully. I growl, swinging my restrained fists, trying to find some way to hit her. I bend my arms toward me and pull back, preparing to hit the back of the woman’s head but her helmet protects her. I grit my teeth as she continues on with her ascension up the stairs as the scientists retreat back to their stupid computer room while two other keep their distance, their eyes trained on me in caution and fear. I look at them with a frown. They’re scared of me. Terrified. They’re staring at me like I’m some kind of wild animal. I briefly contemplate my behavior the past few days and notice that I have actually been rather short-tempered and wild, the polar opposite to my usual temperance. I frown. I wonder if this has something to do with the claws.  
I feel a hand press into my ribs and shove, pushing me off the shoulder of the guard and I’m flying for two seconds before I see darkness create a tunnel that runs longer, at the end the guard with the frowning scientist and the two others and then my back collides with water.  
I break through the surface and I close my eyes as I’m engulfed in the cold fluid. Trying to separate my arms, I curse the restraints. In a last ditch effort, I kick and try to doggy paddle with my bound hands, trying to reach the surface. I growl, my breath creating bubbles as I grit my teeth with an open mouth, struggling because I could feel myself sinking.  
I almost take a deep breath to alleviate my frustration and I growl deep in my throat, opening my eyes and looking around. I should be able to see because there’s a window in front of the tank to look inside, the rest of it metal.  
I see darkness with white light filtering in through the round window. The water is fairly clean so my eyes don’t sting. I look up and notice that, while I am sinking, the water level is rising quickly, filling up the whole tank.  
I grit my teeth, abandoning the doggy paddle and straightening myself, kicking my feet to propel myself forward. With the added weight of the metal restraints, it’s difficult to swim forward, especially with my hands unable to aid my feet. But there’s nothing I can do about except just forcing my way up to reach the water so that I can breath before the tank fills up.  
I narrowly reach the surface and I take a deep breath before I fall under again. I struggle to reach it again but I do, resurfacing and seeing the ceiling of the tank get closer. I swim with the rising water and feel the tip of my claws hit my chin. I grimace, moving my chin away from the claws and looking at them. I wonder how I retract them.  
I clench my hands, focusin hard but nothing seems to be happening. My heart drops. I don’t know how to retract them. I curse, trying to stay afloat but also staring at my claws.  
Okay, I’m tensing up. Maybe the key is to relax and focus or something.  
I force myself to relax and take a deep breath while I can. I purse my lips as I stare at my claws, starting to feel more desperate as I start to get close to the ceiling. Slowly, ever so slowly, I see the ones in my left hand start to sink. I stare at them, mouth open in shock as I continue trying to get them to sink back in, still unsure what I should be focusing on as I try to retract them. I watch the ones on the left sink slowly but surely, watching the one on the far right sink quicker than the rest. I grimace when I feel the other two grind against it as they sink too. I bite my lip, watching them finally disappear and the skin of my knuckles grow over. I feel them nestle within my arm and I almost smile. Thank god! I stare at the ones on the right and bite my lip as I narrow my eyes in concentration, relaxing but then realizing that the roof is really close.  
I involuntarily clench my hand and stare at it, simply willing for the claws to sink in when they do, much quicker than the left ones. I stare at it in surprise. I shake my head, not questioning but watching in dread of the moment that my head makes contact with the metal roof. I take a deep breath and fall into the water right as it reaches the roof, ceasing its travel and leaving me in the still moments of cluelessness, wondering what the fuck I should do.  
I look down at the window that lets light in and look down at my cuffs. Maybe I could crack the window with the cuffs.  
I set my jaw tightly and swim down, determined. I need to do this quick before I drown.  
I let the cuffs drag me down until I reach the window, finally kicking to keep myself floating in the water and I swim to the window slowly. I see the guard standing in front of the window, along with the other scientists that joined her. Farther ahead, I see all the other scientists occupied with their monitors as the leader continues watch over what’s happening. I glare at her as I raise my arms to bring the metal restraints down onto the glass and strike the glass as hard as I can. Considering I’m in water, it’s not that hard and I don’t even scratch the glass. I grit my teeth, baring my teeth and grunting as I bring my hands down on the glass. Bubble escape from between my teeth and I close my mouth in alarm. I need to keep as much air in as I can.  
I stare at the guard and the scientists. They’re talking to each other, nervous as I bring the metal down onto the glass once more. I growl in frustration. The resistance of the water is making this so much fucking harder!  
I grit my teeth in irritation as I begin to wildly hit the glass with the clamps, scratching it just a little bit but remaining largely unsuccessful.  
My lungs start to burn after maybe the thousandth time I hit the glass and I look around, searching for some kind of opening. I try to swim to the other side of the tank, hoping to find at least something but the walls of this tank are frustratingly smooth, empty of any kind of aid or help.  
I look around, my lungs still burning. Maybe something in the ceiling could help.  
I start to swim upward but the weight of the clamp suddenly starts to get heavier and it seems more insistent on dragging me down than before. The weight is something I battle with as I try to propel myself up with my legs.  
My body feels like it’s traveling through molasses as I try to make my way up. I look around. How long have I been here again? It feels like minutes. My breathing capacity has never been strong.  
I shake my head, ignoring that and keeping my mouth sealed while my lungs burn, aching for oxygen. I need to get up there. I need to at least find something to get that damn door open.  
I focus on the roof of the tank, fighting against the weight at my wrists.  
The edges of my vision begin to get darker and I shake my head, trying to clear out the darkness and ignoring the burning of my lungs, that slowly creeping into my chest and muscles.  
The weight of the clamps start to drag me down faster than I’m swimming up. I kick harder, trying to gain the extra distance but the burning in my lungs has reached my legs and my abdomen and the burning in the lungs has escalated to melting.  
I start to grow desperate as I kick harder, not even in a certain rhythm, which I recognize that is isn’t helping me swim farther up but I can’t bring myself to care about that. Kicking harder makes me feel like I’m running. It would be very nice to be able to run away from this problem.  
Sinking lower and lower with thrashing limbs, the darkness of my vision starts to grown as I sink. My cheeks are puffed up with the air I’m trying to store but it’s escaping in sparse bubbles. I watch them rise to the top of the tank and wonder if you can see tears when you’re under water because I know that I am crying right now.  
I feel my feet touch the ground of the tank and I perk up, looking down. Maybe there’s something down here that can help.  
I let the clamp hit the ground and then move around with minimal effort because trying to stay up hurts too much. I growl when I see that the ground is just as empty as the damn walls.  
I stay there for a moment as my vision begins to darken, wondering what I should do when I just decide to release all my air. Fuck it. I don’t want to keep being a lab rat for these sick people. I won’t give this world the satisfaction of becoming their Wolverine. I briefly contemplate whether Logan can die of drowning but throw that thought away. I’m not exactly like Logan, and quite frankly, I hope that I’m not. In fact, I’m sure that I’m not. Because I’m very sure that this sensation of losing consciousness, along with the burning of my lungs combined with the icy coldness setting in my body, is death. I smile. I wonder if this is what Yasmen felt, fainting at that mountain.  
I finally close my eyes, waiting for the bright, comforting lights of the heavens or for the burning flames of hell.  
What I get is the back of my head hitting grate and my back feeling the cold shock of metal as I’m yanked out of the water. I cough, the water in my lungs causing difficulty in breathing. I cough once more, feeling the water come up and I twist, hunching over to spit the water out of my mouth.  
I open my eyes seeing dark metal grate beneath me and legs kneeling beside me.  
“She’s awake. Breathing now.”  
I cough harder, emptying my lungs of the water and inhaling deeply. I look up, seeing the guard with her gun trained on me and the scientists taking notes.  
“Good,” a voice announces from some kind of comm in the room. I look around and finally find the scientist in her place, back inside the monitor room, standing with crossed arms. She’s looking at me and then looks at the people above me. “Put her back in. Take her out after ten minutes of no heartbeat.”


End file.
